


blessed

by Victopteryx



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Background Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game), M/M, POV Second Person, olympian gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28369044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Victopteryx/pseuds/Victopteryx
Summary: "He whom the gods love dies young." - MenanderZagreus has the full support of the gods of Olympus. Were he anyone else, this would probably be a bad thing.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 61





	blessed

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very short, very abstract look into what the ~*~vibes~*~ of each god's blessing might feel like. Potential content warnings for altered mental states, unreality... you know. Greek mythology stuff. Potential spoilers if you haven't successfully gotten out of the underworld at least once ye

**Zeus**

For a single, stupid second, you think you’re floating. There’s a hole inside you that’s growing at a breakneck pace – a vast, empty void that stretches under your skin and crackles with invisible heat. Your fingers tingle on your sword hilt. Every strike shakes the very ground beneath your feet. You breathe in deep and taste ozone on the back of your tongue; you blink away the starbursts behind your eyes as you drive Stygius hilt-deep into a hapless wretch. Deafening thunder rattles the chamber as you leap through the open door.

**Poseidon**

You have never drowned. You have never been buried. You think you have pretty solid idea of what it would feel like, though. Aegis slams into the wall with the force of a typhoon; the witch gives a single wail as she shatters into nothing. You feel a disoriented. You whirl around to face the rest of the swarm, and the room whirls with you. Your feet are guided by an invisible current – you aren’t even aiming anymore as you rush into the fray. You are not some ship being tossed to and fro by the sea; you are the sea; somewhere, deep below, the memory of Pontus shudders.

**Athena**

There is steel on your tongue and fire in your eyes. Your mind is as clear as it has ever been – you _will_ break the surface. Varatha sings in your hand; a dozen courses are charted before you. The blows of your enemies glance off your sides. Your strikes are sure, and they land true. Your cause is just; your allies steadfast. Varatha pierces clean through the bomber before you. The fumes of the Phlegethon burn your eyes. You catch a clay jar before it combusts and hurl it back towards its owner.

**Aphrodite**

There is something sickly sweet sticking to the back of your teeth. You lock eyes with an exalted swordsman and he turns on his fellows without a second thought. Your touch weakens; Malphon shreds. You wish Thanatos were here – and then, because you’re blessed, there he is! A deathly knell, a rush of cold air that sends the hairs on your arms standing on end, and then Death Incarnate beheads an exalted swordsman as easy as breathing. There is a violent restlessness inside you – your hands hunger, and you don’t know if it’s Malphon or if it’s just you, so you turn on the souls barring your path. You can feel Thanatos’s eyes on you as you tear a shade apart, and something vainglorious in your chest purrs at the attention. You look back, words ready on the cloying sweet of your tongue, but by then he’s already gone.

**Artemis**

You’re not accustomed to waiting like this. Artemis whispers encouragement into the shell of your ear. Your hands are steady and sure as you draw Coronacht taught. The shades don’t breathe. The shades don’t bleed. Coronacht aches for something that it will not find. The arrow strikes true, as all your arrows do. You flit from chamber to chamber like a ghost. This time, the Champion of Elysium does not even see you enter the ring before your blade bites into his throat. The crowd roars, because the crowd would always roar, one way or another. The sound hurts your ears as the door closes behind you.

**Ares**

_My kin_ , he calls you. He is confident, and he is confident in _you_ , and why wouldn’t he be? Your cause is just, you all know this. It’s not a question of _whether_ you’ll make it to the surface, but _when_. He is sending you to your death, as he has sent hundreds of thousands before, and as he will continue to do, until the end of time. It’s not a problem. After all, the bloody swathe you carve with every attempt more than justifies his interest. _My kin_ , he says, and the ichor drips from your blade. _My kin_ , he says, and the copper swells in your throat. _Death-dealing kin_ , he says, and the sword descends.

**Dionysus**

Wow, you say. _Wow_ , you say again, just for emphasis, because, really, _wow_. Is this stuff legal? Is this – of course it isn’t, you think. The fog disperses just in time for the rat to sink its teeth into your arm. It releases you with a shriek; the stuff oozing from your veins isn’t blood, this time. You laugh, because it’s funny, because the rats are swarming in a big circle and you’re wondering if they practiced doing that somehow. The satyrs are laughing, too – their eyes bulge and their faces turn red, and it’s almost stupidly easy to kill them when they’re doubled over like that. The stinking blood pooling in the cracks on the floor almost looks like wine. You don’t even remember clearing the chamber, but it’s fine, it’s fine. You lick your fingers clean and the expression on Charon’s face sends you laughing again.

**Hermes**

You spin out of the way of the whip, and your feet barely touch the ground before you’re off again. You feel lighter than air, and it’s a pretty great feeling, but you’re not going to stop and revel in it because, honestly? You have better places to be. You do take the time to voice this thought to Meg, though, and she snarls in wordless fury and launches herself towards you. It’s like she’s moving through molasses. You voice this thought, too, as you dance out of reach. You empty Exagryph’s chamber into the back of her head, and you’re at the door before the Styx even has a chance to claim her. You tell her corpse you’ll see her at the house, and you’re off again.

**Demeter**

From what little time you’ve spent on the surface, you think you have a fairly good understand of what winter is. The ground is covered in the white substance called _snow_ ; the air moves in incomprehensible patterns, sometimes sending flecks of frozen water into your eyes; your breath crystallizes before you like a cloud. Demeter smiles when you tell her this, with a smile as devoid of warmth as the land above, and tells you that if you’re so eager to learn about winter, she’ll be happy to oblige. You can’t feel your hands. The surface winds tear through the tunnels of Tartarus like beasts, howling and clawing, clearing you a path. Demeter talks to you as you ascend the broken, frostbitten halls. She tells you of the slow decay, the way summer leaves blacken and shrivel, the way the fields grow fallow and the lakes freeze over. She tells you of how even great Helios in his chariot cannot warm the land, how the skies of mighty Zeus bend to her storms, how little Hermes is no match for Boreas in times like these. You thank her for the insight as she shatters the lock.


End file.
